I saw a portrait of Uri Zvi Greenberg,
it showed an older man
perhaps twice my age,
with no recognizable poetic traits in his face,
perhaps had they shown a young man
it would've been different?

I saw a portrait of Miklos Radnoti
he died as a young man,
with no recognizable poetic traits in his face,
and I have nearly lived his full life,
perhaps if they had shown a child
it would've been different?

I saw a portrait of Anne Frank
whom all the world knows.
I am twice her age,
it's not different
it's worse
peace comes regardless of age
it begins for the living
at the expense of the dead.

I saw a portrait from when I was a child,
like the opening lines of
the epic poem I am becoming,
I will not be a national treasure
like the Kalevala
or Shahnameh
I will be immortalized
like all the unnamed citizens
of Uruk
remembered merely because they lived there,
whose names are unknown
like those
who did not leave a diary,
or a notebook of poems,
and like sheep to the slaughter
did not live to my time to read them.

Vor dem Gesetz steht ein Türhüter.
                                      --Kafka*


This is a day
like the many days I've spent

empty handed
among the shadows at dusk

that cast no reflections
in the reflecting pools

and hold no illusions
as to what really is illusive.

But on this day my illusions
are changing

imagining that for once my world is based
upon three things;

The rule of law

The five books of your hand

And you, the prophetess that wrote them.

And as required
I will build a hedge for you.

And if this hedge
should ever over grow,
I will then trim it
like a true guardian of the law

Allowing none other entry
and I alone will hold fast

to the five books of your hand
and the only other existing copy.

There are many days
when I wish
that like Joshua,
I too could make the sun stand still,
and there are many nights
when I wish to do the same
with the moon
to allow us subtle darkness
just a little while longer,
and there are many times
when my voice
is only its own echo....

You say,
that like a fossil
which went through its changes
at an earlier time,
that now
I too am changing.
I am no longer like wet cement
where the things
which I'm to remember
are inscribed
like someone's initials
upon the wet surface,
but that I am more like the things
I've forgotten
those things
which distress me---
crabgrass and weeds
growing up through the cracks
in the face of my soul.

Shouldn't he and his minions
all be referred to
as "afterbirthers" now?

1.

The peace of the brave
gave way to the war of allegories
illuminating our world
like a medieval manuscript
with a confusing colophon
of indecision.

2.

Unstable religious fuels
and volatile political compounds
energize the endless human wicks,
that light many an unsuspecting
yahrzeit candle.

3.

And love which may have
been 'stronger than death'
is not so strong lately
as an army that's already dead
cannot be defeated
as easily.

4.

"the children come right home from school"
Yossi said,
'perhaps they've already learned too much as it is?'
I think....
Our home is our castle
and like a missile defense
in American mythology
its walls are semipermeable membranes
of security.

my heart has turned you
into memories;
my mind, into
a pillar of salt.
when I think of you
in the present,
or spend nights alone
with my dreams of you,
my mind rubs against
my heart,
like salt in an open wound.

my mind has tuned you
into a bow;
my heart, into
strings.
when I speak of you
it is in past tense,
though you are very much alive---
it hurts less,
as my mind rubs against
my heart,
striking a melancholy song:
shuvi, shuvi,
v'nechezeh bach!"
---return, return,
let us gaze at you!

skin as soft as freshly washed sand,
the taste of salt upon my lips.
is it the same for you?
your eyes are the shards
of pale green glass strewn
along the beach,
wherever I go you watch me,
whatever I do you see.

like a prophet
wishing that only the best part
of his prophecy comes true,
I come to you, a faithful pilgrim,
head covered in the clouds
a galabiyya of air about my body.
I prostrate and entwine myself
with you in supplication,
like the finely knotted stitches
of a prayer rug
and I whisper that until you,
I had never been so religious.

your previous lovers
who cluttered their love with stone and mortar
will not be soon forgotten,
I who clutter you with words
am already,
like one breath following another.

all that I write on your skin
is washed out to sea
and returns on the wind
spread like the seeds of wild flowers
which grow among the rocky hills and ruins
like silent colorful pilgrims
up by the mosque of sidna 'ali
as the last remains
of a religion, and a memory,
and a love  and words.